The glittering life (and jewels) of Gina Lollobrigida

She dined with Dalí and partied with Bobby Kennedy; the glamorous actress Gina Lollobrigida is a legend in her own lifetime. Now she's parting with her real love: a collection of jewels almost as impressive as the woman herself.

BY Nisha Lilia Diu |
13 May 2013

Gina Lollobrigida

'I don't like jewellery,' said Gina Lollobrigida to Howard Hughes. The billionaire film tycoon had flown the actress to Hollywood and was trying desperately to woo her.

The jewellery the Italian screen siren has is quite something: spectacular pearl drop earrings thought originally to have been in the collection of the Habsburg family; a huge, 19.03ct diamond ring, and countless vampish emeralds. Almost all of it is from Bulgari - 'Obviously,' Lollobrigida says. 'Bulgari was the most important jeweller in Rome.' And now it is on sale. Sotheby's in Geneva will put a selection of pieces under the hammer on Tuesday to raise money for a children's hospital that Lollobrigida hopes to open.

As well as working with charities, Lollobrigida, now 85, has turned her hand to sculpture and photography since leaving acting behind. She once beat the press to an exclusive shoot and interview with Fidel Castro, something that may or may not have been related to their rumoured affair.

The second of four daughters of a joiner, Lollobrigida was spotted in the street in the medieval hilltop town of Subiaco, near Rome, when she was just 18. As a joke, she demanded a million lire for her first film role, a vast sum of money in 1947 - and got it.

She went on to star in the films
Trapeze
(1956),
Solomon and Sheba
(1959) and
Come September
(1961) and opposite the likes of Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant (whom she has described as 'all right, but in my opinion no comparison to Sean Connery').

Earlier this year Lollobrigida hit the headlines for a different kind of drama. Javier Rigau y Rafols, a Spanish businessman 34 years her junior and formerly her boyfriend of almost three decades, had, she claimed, married her without her consent.

He said she wanted to be married by proxy to avoid media attention. She called him a 'rascal' and a 'vulture' who was after her money.

If anyone suspected Lollobrigida - who Humphrey Bogart said made Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple - of having lost her bite, they didn't anymore.

'I never had presents,' she says of her childhood. 'It was just after the war and life was very difficult. I knew what it was to be hungry.' When she found herself wealthy enough to splash out on diamonds, she did so unapologetically.

Did she buy the pieces in the Sotheby's sale to mark special occasions? 'No!' she hoots. 'There was no reason.'

Her independence is legendary. 'I was like a man, seducing them,' she has said of her lovers. 'I was not waiting for someone to choose me.'

She says that one of the reasons she turned down Howard Hughes was because he was 'too rich. I didn't like the imbalance.'

She has been single since breaking up with Rigau and is throwing herself into her new charity project. 'My life has changed,' she says. 'I want the jewellery to serve another purpose now: to give these children hope.'

Jewels from the collection of Gina Lollobrigida form part of the 'Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels' auction at Sotheby's Geneva on Tuesday (
sothebys.com
)